News

The TCRG family is growing. With the goal of bridging the gap between our fantastic (Top 20!) All-Stars and our highly-skilled house teams, TCRG is expanding to include a B-Team. Open to all skaters in the league, tryouts for the B-Team were held on Friday, January 16th and Sunday, January 18th, 2014.

Germaine Koh (f.k.a PLAYER 1) has been selected to represent the league as its first B-team coach. Previously the coach of the Riot Girls, Koh is looking to transfer her winning ways to the B-team. She brings to the team her experience as a TCRG All-Star player, a methodical approach to training and research, and a gentle fanaticism about fitness. Teaming up with Koh is Johnny Qwadd, who will act as the new team’s assistant coach. Qwadd has most recently worked with Team Canada as their Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Blood and Thunder World Cup, and plans to bring his immense skill sets of fitness and derby knowledge to the new team.

Tryouts for interested skaters involved a series of fitness and skills tests, designed to quantitatively and qualitatively assess each player’s skill set. Between the burpees and agility testing, hockey stops and blocking drills, the skaters were assessed by a panel of their peers. This panel consisted of one skater from each house team, a member of the All-Stars and the new team’s coach (Koh). Once the formalized tests were concluded, skaters were separated into two teams for a scrimmage. The goals of the scrimmage were to assess each skater’s jamming skills, jammer mental skills, track awareness & strategic knowledge, gameplay, communication, and teamwork.

Once the scores were tabulated and the assessments were in, TCRG welcomed, without further ado, the following to our new B team!

Season 9 is just around the corner, so it's time to get warmed up with our most action packed pre-season yet! Open to the public for the first time this year, TCRG will showcase their eager recent Fresh Meat graduates in a scrimmage of their own alongside Free Agents. Derby fans can then catch their new favourite players and returning vets in six house team scrimmages. Doors open at 10:30pm and first whistle is at 10:45pm on the following Saturdays:

January 17th - Fresh Meat/Free Agent Scrimmage

January 31st - Riot Girls vs The Faster Pussycats

February 7th - The Bad Repuations vs Public Frenemy

February 21st - Riot Girls vs The Bad Reputations

February 28th - The Faster Pussycats vs Public Frenemy

March 14th - The Faster Pussycats vs The Bad Reputations

March 21st - Riot Girls vs Public Frenemy

Parking is limited; Central City Arena (10240 City Parkway, Surrey) is located directly across from the Surrey Central SkyTrain station and is wheelchair accessible. No alcohol in the venue.

All events are $5 cash at the door (no pre-sales). Seating is limited and first come first served; don't forget a chair or a cushion, although we can bet you'll be on your feet cheering.

The Terminal City All-Stars made another huge jump in the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) standings for the month of June — they now sit at 18th place in the world.
This, after jumping from 37th to 25th in May.

“We were 37th in April, 25th in May and now 18th on WFTDA rankings as we head into playoffs,” says coach Mack the Mouth. “I can’t say enough about the hard work and focus all of the skaters have put in.”
Their jump to 18th place has put them smack dab in the middle of the 10 teams playing in the first of four Division 1 playoff tournaments, which takes place Sept. 5-7 in Sacramento, CA.

“We are all very excited about playing Rat City as it brings this team’s transformation full circle,” says Mack. “We played them on June 9, 2012 and exceeded the outcome as well as put a scare into Rat City with our star passes and different schemes we ran on starts. It was less than 10 points at halftime and although they ran away with it in the last 15 minutes, the score was not indicative of the game we played. So now we get to play them again.”

Winning that first game would put the All-Stars into a game against Gotham. In the last year, the All-Stars have played every top-10 team in WFTDA except for Gotham, Rocky Mountain, and Minnesota.
“Being a fifth seed gives us a legitimate shot at going to champs,” says Mack. “We would have to beat Rat City, and then after playing Gotham we would play in the game for third and fourth position. If you finish third at your divisional, you go to champs.”

Before recently leaping to 25th and now 18th place, the All-Stars had been hovering at 37th place for a year.
“It's also important to point out that we have (moved up in the standings) with constant adversity being thrown at us in the last 90 days. Injuries seem to plague our core jammers this year, yet this team keeps finding a way to step up and respond. It bodes very well for playoffs as we should, hopefully, have everyone healthy and ready to go for September in Sacramento,” he adds.

“We are ranked 18th. That's pretty fricking amazing when we were not even on the WFTDA radar just over two years ago,” says Mack.

Following the playoffs in Sacramento, there will be three other rounds of playoffs for the remaining top 40 teams in Division 1: Sept. 19-21 in Evansville, IN; Sept. 26-28 in Salt Lake City, UT; and Oct. 3-5 in Charleston, WV. The top three teams from each of the four playoff tournaments will head to the WFTDA International Championships Oct. 31 to Nov. 2 in Nashville, TN.

Minoru Arena in Richmond was home to a trifecta of derby greatness. On Friday, July 11, the Terminal City All-Stars hosted the Houston Roller Derby All-Stars in a WFTDA-sanctioned bout. Then on Saturday, July 12, the season finale of the TCRG Season 8 pitted the Bad Reputations against Public Frenemy for third place and later in the evening, the Faster Pussycats battled the Riot Girls in the night’s championship bout for the coveted Mercury Shield.

At the beginning of their Pacific coast road trip, the 36th-ranked Houston All-Stars were in town Friday night to play our own Terminal City All-Stars. From the first whistle, TCRG displayed their dynamic defence and brilliant jamming, and wasted no time in building an early lead. Evada Peron showed the fans precisely why she was elected to Team Canada; with phenomenal juking in the eighth jam, she vaulted TCRG to an early 62-25 lead. A TCRG jammer penalty gave Houston the advantage, which closed the scoring gap to 16 points. Houston’s Death by Chocolate proved troublesome for the TCRG blockers as she used her power and agility to consistently get lead jam. However, in one of the final jams of the half, NazDroveya Wylde racked up the points from a couple grand slams. Going into halftime, Terminal City was up, 123-65 over Houston.

TCRG looked even more dominant at the start of the second half, capitalizing on a pair of Houston jammer penalties, as they increased their lead to 74 points. Houston powerhouse jammer Freight Train amazed the Vancouver fans as she barrelled through the TCRG pack and racked up the points in Houston’s attempt to rally. But it was not enough. TCRG’s formidable defence and superior team play wore Houston down. Simonius Smaximus scored a double-grand-slam jam and then on the final jam of the night, Evada Peron piled on the points solidifying the TCRG victory in impressive fashion. Final score: Terminal City 256, Houston 136.

Though the heat was sweltering outside on Saturday night, inside Minoru Arena, things were just heating up. In the first game of the evening's double header, Public Frenemy played the Bad Reputations to decide third place. The game was tight from the get-go, with a few zero-zero jams and minimal points given up by either team, until Trauma Acid opened the flood gates with a massive jam, putting the Bad Reps up, 22 to 5. Public Frenemy bounced back with an impressive power jam by rookie Bannock at the Disco, bringing Public Frenemy within six points of the lead. Tight defence and hard hitting from both teams allowed for only a razor thin differential in scoring, and at the half, it was 81-78 for Public Frenemy.

In the second half, Public Frenemy came out of the locker room on a tear. Led by the always sensational jamming of veteran Didgeri Doom, PF boosted their lead to 39 points. Frenemy continued to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them by the Bad Reps penalties. But the Reps refused to give up, and continued to flex their muscles through aggressive physical play led by Major Assets and Sage Martin. However, PF maintained and built their lead through tight defensive walls, as commanded by their mighty captain Violet Deterrent. In the end, Public Frenemy pulled off their first league win of the season, outscoring the Bad Reps 205-107 in what proved to a rough, tough and exciting battle.

The 2014 Mercury Shield championship bout pitted the 2012 champions, the Faster Pussycats, against the 2013 champions, the Riot Girls. The first half felt like a "back-and-forth, anybody's game" sort of bout; the Faster Pussycats were on the scoreboard first, but the Riot Girls were not far behind. NazDroveya Wylde and Simonius Smaximus put in repeat performances, having played brilliantly the night before for the All-Stars, and jammed like pros for their home team (Faster Pussycats). The first few jams were an intense exchange of points, but a series of jammer penalties by the Pussycats led to a shift in momentum and allowed the Riot Girls to slowly and surely take command of the game. Strong jamming by Sarah Saturday and End'er Wigglin put points on the board, and at the half, the Riot Girls led 120-78.

Captain Tiki TimeBomb led the defensive charge for the Pussycats in the second half, but the Riot Girls incrementally continued to build their lead. The action continued to be furious. In one wild, two-minute jam, both teams had multiple jammer penalties, and both jammers passed the star to the pivot. “What a jam!” exclaimed commentator Dr. Jenny Fever. Try as they might, the Pussycats couldn't contain the explosive and unstoppable jamming of Justine Timberskate. Combine this with the Riot Girls rock-solid, impenetrable defence courtesy of veterans Booty Quake and Mick E Knocks, and you have a lethal recipe for victory. It was an exciting finish to a great season, and in the end, the Riot Girls took home the Mercury Shield for the second year in a row and proved themselves to be the undefeated, undisputed 2014 champions. The final score: Riot Girls 220, Faster Pussycat 161.

And that concludes Season 8! A big thank you goes out to our referees and volunteers — you make this all possible. Thanks as well to all our fans and supporters. We hope to see you next spring for the start of Season 9!